Posts by m8nkey

Quote from Em

Wow Em' impressive § Bump ! My finished texture and model, here rendered in marmoset toolbag

Nice work Em. Did you tweak the lower eyelid after we spoke on IM? Looks more prominent now. I'd also suggest adding a bit of upper eyelid following the contour of the eye, clearly distinguishable from the eye socket. This would make his face look more relaxed and natural instead of eyes wide open. Other than that it looks great.

looks great. I'll check it out ingame after work today.

Quote from Bunglo

You tree looks good but you might want to make some of the branches a bit thicker so the silhouette carries farther. Does source support intersecting geometry? If it does, you can simply have the branches intersect with the trunk to save tris if that's ever an issue. It's also quicker in my opinion.

Thanks for the tips. I hadn't even thought of using intersecting geometry, sounds like a good method for quickly creating variations too.

I'm aiming for consistency in style and quality, not perfection so I think this is final:

[Blocked Image: http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w57/m8nkey/CS_Metroplex/tree_final_01.jpg]

looking good Bunglo. are you going to make a lowpoly or use it for anything other than sculpting practice?

low poly tree wip for my source map i'm trying to wrap up as quick as possible. I bought a cheap, low poly tree of turbo squid but it has so many problems I started to make my own from scratch, using the purchased model as a reference.

1st map is looking great. is this still for l4d 1 or 2?

here's something i started playing around with in my spare time today. plan is to texture, rig and animate him.

[attachment=0]theKing.jpg[/attachment]

nice one ultradr3mer. out of curiosity what's the polycount for the lowpoly?

Here's my final submission for a low poly character design/modeling/texturing assignment. This is my first attempt at character modeling.

[attachment=0]theSatyr.jpg[/attachment]

front head reference for a character modeling and rigging assignment. drawn in photoshop with a wacom. the character will be a satyr.

[attachment=0]front.jpg[/attachment]

looking great Pomperi. beautiful textures as i've come to expect from you anyway. i like the splash of red the mushrooms add to the scene too.

looking good schoft. nice, consistent level of detail. even the ceiling!

Steppenwolf:

hard to tell from a single screen but looks significantly different to sa74n's version. new layout with the new brushwork? i look forward to seeing more.

This year I started a two year diploma in game development with an Art Major in Australia. To my understanding the industry is small here.

I'm currently living in Sydney. I don't think there are many opportunities here at the moment. The dubious Team Bondi are situated opposite where I'm studying but other than them, there aren't many studios in Sydney that I know of. I've heard majority of studios are in Melbourne. Canberra and Brisbane also have a few studios.

As far as lifestyle and culture go, Sydney and Melbourne are my two favorite cities. Perth is nice but isolated from the rest of the country. I've spent time in every major Australian city during my service in the Navy.

A mate of mine returned to Australia only last month after working for a studio in Sweden for several years as a level designer. He had no problem finding work due to his experience.

I like it here, I'm very family and friend oriented so ideally I'll work here but I'm prepared to go abroad to get a foot in the door once I've finished my studies.

If any Mapcorians are ever over here, don't hesitate to get in touch. Especially if you're in Sydney.

does the refract shader work on models? i think that might be your problem.

i'd suggest using "VertexlitGeneric" with "$translucent" "1" for the glass. not as fancy though

Hi Em,

I'm not sure how to create an animated door. Personally I don't like them in multiplayer maps and choose to avoid them, opting for static open doors.

Here's an example of a single model with multiple material properties (a billiard light). Within max the model is broken down into 3 meshes, one for each material property. Assign unique materials to the different meshes in max and when it's compiled ensure you have VMTs by the same name. You can refer to the same VTF and simply change the properties in the VMT (so you're only using one VTF). Not sure if this is best practice but it's how I do it.

In this example texture 1 uses "nocull" to create tassles and chains. Texture 2 uses "selfillum" for the fluorescent lights and Texture 3 uses "transluscent" to create transparent glass.

billiard_light01.vmt

"VertexlitGeneric"


{


	"$basetexture" "models/metroplex/billiard_light"


	"$nocull" "1"


	"$alphatest" 1


	"$surfaceprop" "glass"


	"$envmap" "env_cubemap"


	"$envmaptint" "[ .2 .2 .2 ]"


}

billiard_light02.vmt

"VertexlitGeneric"


{


	"$basetexture" "models/metroplex/billiard_light"


	"$model" "1"


	"$surfaceprop" "metal"


	"$envmap" "env_cubemap"


	"$envmaptint" "[.3 .3 .3]"


	"$selfillum" "1"


}

billiard_light03.vmt

"VertexlitGeneric"


{


	"$basetexture" "models/metroplex/billiard_light"


	"$translucent" 1


	"$envmap" "env_cubemap"


	"$envmaptint" "[ .2 .2 .2 ]"


}

[attachment=0]cs_metroplex_feb06100002.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=1]cs_metroplex_feb06100001.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=2]cs_metroplex_feb06100000.jpg[/attachment]

Quote from dux

The waves need more work in my opinion. The same one repeated over and over again at different sizes looks a bit iffy.

Considering the stylised nature of TF2 I think the waves are reasonable though it's hard to say without seeing how it looks ingame.

Overall I think the custom content does a nice job of fitting into the TF2 style while bringing a refreshing change of theme.

First post updated.

Since the last screens I've:

Revised the lighting (though the shadow control still needs work)

Added several models made by Em, myself and a few I purchased and ported to source

Added road markings

Started detailing the toilets

There's still some placeholder content around (like the billiard lights). The main areas that still need work are the toilets and cinema projector room.

I'm starting a fulltime 3d course next week so hoping to get this out of the road by March at the latest. It's likely I'll have an open beta by the end of Feb.

Great video presentation. I look forward to checking it out ingame.

great looking architecture and custom assets. keep it up.

Thanks for all the great advice guys.

Quote from Jenn0_Bing

The biggest thing that stands out to me is the lack of markings on the road, defiantely needs something to break up that large blackk area.

I've added double line road marking as overlays and it's definitely an improvement.

Quote from PhilipK

Yes some decals would really help that ground especially.What I also find very strange is why there are 2 crossings in the road corner. It'd make sense if it actually was a T-crossing there. I understand the layout wouldn't really allow to open up that road (or maybe if it's closed off). Anyway as it is now I think it'd make a lot more sense to have the crossing in the middle of the straight part of the road.

Actually I think the whole road would benefit a lot from not beeing so strict to the grid. But I know it might be hard to do much about that so simply having some markings, dirt and other grunge going on there would help out loads.

The underlying layout was originally based off Hollywood Holocaust, the first Duke Nukem map. Although it's changed dramatically the odd street setup is due to the original layout. I agree the crossings aren't particularly functional and I've never seen any setup like that. I put them there simply to break up the road surface.

Quote from D3ads

Having bits of trash at each end of the zebra crossing looks really odd, and makes the rest of the level look too clean, try to add a bit more variation in placement of trash. Also as Phillip said, decals are your friend, add some to spice up the detail but use them sparingly since they'll end up cluttering scene if used wrong. That road texture could benefit from some trims on the edges and maybe some wear and tear too as well as markings to break up the repetition. Really like the car models you've got there, but they remind me of Max Payne a bit as they're kinda simplistic, might wanna add an interior in there if you can or at least paint the windows with a better less basic texture.

There was no forethought in overlay placement in those screens. I just started throwing them around. I removed a great deal of them and have put more thought into overlay placement.

No chance of adding car interiors. At the moment they have polycounts between 1000-1200 and I'd like to keep performance reasonable on lower end systems. The window texture is the same base material used for all the brush glass materials so at least it fits in within the scene.

Quote from tonystockert

looks great. not sure if it's been mentioned but it is a little odd that there's only 2 kinds of cars. there's the police SUV and then the Dodge Charger-type car in red, blue and police colors. Maybe throw a pickup truck in there and some toyota/honda knockoff cars, a Prius would be funny.

I actually had more car types but removed them because they didn't fit with these cars. The map is currently 45mb compressed and I'd like to keep the final filesize as low as possible, hopefully under 50mb.

Quote from RA7

Any BETA??.......*hides

I've been doing internal testing with my friends and I'm really happy with the gameplay. I'm aiming for a March release though it may be sooner, just depends on how busy I am with work. I plan on having a single open beta before release, I'll send a preview your way beforehand though.

Quote from skdr

Your map could benefit from texture trims, overlays and better lighting.

Thanks for the crits SKDR.

I'm still working on overlays.

I used trims on my inteiror textures but didn't for the outdoor textures, opting to model details like windows and trims so they don't look flat. I think you're right though, some trims would help seperate and define the building shapes. I'll look into it.

I agree, the outdoor lighting is horrible, definitely needs a lot of work. I don't think I'll use that skybox either (currently assault).

Finished all the vehicle models. they are pretty ordinary but good enough. Working on the final details for the street area, 3d signs, billboards and overlays.

I also made the rooftop opposite the cinema player accessible.

broken links removed